February 16, 2003

$26 billion Bribe for Turkey's Support

Along with selling out the Kurds, Bush is offering Turkey $6 billion in direct grants and $20 billion in loan guarantees to get that country's backing for war.

Let's be clear what this means-- almost all international support for Bush is probably based on either threats of economic retaliation or promises of help in the future, one reason Bush's support is so concentrated in former East Bloc countries like Bulgaria desperate for foreign aid.

What's so telling is that despite Bush's corruption of foreign aid programs in support of his war aims, he still can't assemble any serious support for his argument beyond Britain's Tony Blair.

Let's just refer to Bush's global support as the Coalition of the Bribed.

Update: Give Turkey credit. They are at least being smart enough to take advantage of their leverage, given Bush's desperate need for support, to demand a decent bribe for their support. The Turkish government has delayed a vote by their parliament until Bush ponies up more money.

If Turkey decides that a promise from Bush is not enough, but demand that Bush push the aid through Congress first, that could confront the White House with a situation they desperately want to avoid-- essentially a new vote in Congress to directly authorize war with Iraq, including part of the looming price tag that his foreign aid promises, the war itself, and occupation will burden the US budget with.

Posted by Nathan at February 16, 2003 10:02 AM

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More to the point, Turkey's role in any war with Iraq will be a negative one from a humanitarian standpoint. It will almost certainly lead to a betrayal of the Kurds, thereby contradicting one of the stated goals of a US invasion, that of "promoting democracy and self-determination" of the people of Iraq.

A few questions about Kurds:
1. What was the ethnicity of Turkey's second president Ismet Inonu, who was also the closest aide of Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataurk? Answer: Kurdish
2. What was the ethnicity of Turkey's 8th president Turgut Ozal, who was also its most popular prime minister of all time? Answer: Kurdish
3. Are there any other states that have ever had Kurdish presidents? Answer: Take a wild guess.
4. What is the ethnicity of Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned leader of the PKK, seen by many in the West as the Yasir Arafat of the Kurds? Answer: Turkish
5. Does Ocalan speak Kurdish? Answer: Nope
6. Turkey, a poor nation, has lost 15,000 conscripts to the PKK and suffered economically from 15 years of war. Has there been a popular backlash against the Kurds living in Turkey? Answer: Nope
7. Who is the leader of the Kurdish nation? Answer: Wrong question. That's like asking who is the leader of the Afghan nation. You should be asking which warlord is leading which tribe.
8. How many people speak the Kurdish language? Answer: Zero. There is no such thing. There are two distinct languages, Zaza and Kirmanchi.
9. How do you have Kurdish nationalism without a Kurdish nation? Answer: In the imagination of latter-day Lord Byrons, and in the centuries-old anti-Turkish prejudices of bigots.
10. Then why are all those Kurds fighting and dying? Answer: Ask Syrian intelligence, ask Iranian intelligence, ask German intelligence, ask Greek itelligence, and coming soon: ask the CIA. OK, I also admit: Ask a group of Turkish officers and police who took over the PKK's drugs operation and prolonged the war so they could stay in business.
11. OK, well isn't it true that Kurdish villages have been burnt to the ground, millions of people driven from their homes, villages collectively punished, people forced to join the anti-PKK militia, etc. Answer: Yes, absolutely. Those are classic anti-insurgency tactics.
12. Isn't it true that there was widespread, horrendous torture and summary executions? Answer: Of course it's true. Turkey is a US ally, what do you expect? Turkish officers were once regular guests of the School of the Americas. But Turkey is still better than Argentina or Chile, and human rights are improving all the time. Ask the EU.

Posted by: Hakki Alacakaptan at February 17, 2003 03:59 PM

"Are there any other states that have ever had Kurdish presidents?"

Well as the only democratic state Kurds have had the opportunity to be suppressed by it says something for Turkey, I agree. I'll refrain from the histrionics over why Kurdish populations in neighboring states haven't had many chances to enter the political process, present policies by my government seem to make the point moot.

Turgut was partly Kurdish, and I'd imagine many others besides are partly Kurdish or partly Turkish, as the case may be. I have no idea where the idea that Ocalan was Turkish comes from, though I'm sure if I thought the conflict was purely ethnic I'd take some sort of interest. Turgut, for his part, didn't let his ethnicity prevent him from beginning the conscription of his fellow Kurds, under threat of force, into anti-PKK village guards, forming defacto state-backed village mafias presently offing returning villagers; and Ocalan didn't refrain from slaughtering the innocent he was supposedly speaking out for, whatever language he spoke.

I don't consider forced assimilation, which is the TG's policy so far as I can tell, a success if these are the examples it has to offer up.

"Has there been a popular backlash against the Kurds living in Turkey?"

This is in somewhat poor taste, considering it's nominally a democracy that's suppressing a culture and evicting the better part of a people from their homes.

"That's like asking who is the leader of the Afghan nation."

I think it's more like asking who is the leader of an Afghan nation divvied up between Iran, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan - but sure.

"There is no such thing [as the Kurdish language]. There are two
distinct languages, Zaza and Kirmanchi."

Nobody speaks Chinese, either, by this particular brand of semantics. The Zaza dialect is only spoken much in Turkey, and what it's a dialect of is a debate for linguists to lollygaggle over. In northern Iraq Sorani has been the "official" Kurdish, in so little as cultural rights are respected there. Kirmanci is just another dialect considered "foreign" by the Turkish government, and until recently illegal, like the rest of them. So there are many distinct dialects, by virtue of isolated populations separated among mountains facing varying degrees of cultural repression by their respective governments.

"anti-Turkish"

Very funny.

"classic anti-insurgency tactics"

Thus we should turn a blind eye on such tactics as they resurface because our elected governments are persuing policies that will guarantee the resurgence of atrocity and a step backwards in the struggle for human rights?

"Turkey is still better than Argentina or Chile"

In what time frame? I'm not aware of Argentina or Chiles' governments undertaking any projects in the past 15 years that's terribly comparable to what's been going on in Turkey.

"I'd give just about anything to just watch the meetings with Bush and other top officials with these countries. I remember how Blair wasn't for any actions against Iraq, then suddenly he was.

I wonder what Bush said to him. What he offered. What he offered to revoke."

It is rumored--but yet to be confirmed, if ever, that Blair was bribed directly with several billion dollars by Bush.

At bottom is the article I read, and URL was put in box above. It could be untrue, but it might be true.

BTW I lived in Argentina and Chile while Pinochet was still in power, 1986-7, doing oilfield work in Patagonia. Argentina at the time was the freeest country I have ever seen, but it was just a few years after the Dirty War and it was entirely socially unacceptable to be wearing a uniform. I never saw a single policeman in Argentina and the Customs people all wore whatever they felt like of civilian clothes. There was virtually no crime--I never saw any and saw very little crime reported. I did see some soldiers, but not many. All in all I would call it a Civility--i.e. where the people behave well enough that no police are needed. Of course times have become ugly there since then.

Chile was a different story. Half of the Chileans were hiding in Argentina, it seemed. Carabineros were on every street corner in the larger towns and cities of Chile, with white bandoliers on green uniforms. They had military checkpoints all over the country. One fellow at one check station coerced me into taking an empty petrol barrel to town while I was on my way, and gave me ration chits to fill it up with in town.

Another time I was in a nightclub in Santiago. All of a sudden the place filled up with machine gun toting carabineros and they ushered us all out--except the dancing girls, of course. Apparently they were all raped as protection payment.

But the Carabineros were all afraid of Americans in a sense: they acted as though if they did something to an American, that there would be serious hell to pay, for them and for everyone around them. I was nice to them, they were nice to me. But Pinochet should be cut up alive into 1" squares. He is one of the world's all-time worst.

Argentinos were different. They were very proud and would take crap from no one. I liked that a lot. They also knew how to enjoy life better than Americans. For example, if you weren't getting laid, they'd find somebody nice for you. That is indeed true. For them, not getting laid was as much of a deprivation as not getting to eat.

But--get this--I was pulled over about 70 times driving an old van in the U.S. in 1998. That's right--about 70 times. The stupid cops would see it and just immediately pull it over and search and harass. I ended up with only one ticket for allegedly running a stop sign, but no arrests. But rifles were shoved in my face twice and my civil rights were blatantly violated on four occasions. So, I have to conclude that the present-day U.S. is a far worse police state than Pinochet's Chile was in 1986.

"But they aren't killing people" you might say. Well, that is not true. If you collect news stories of people in the U.S. being shot by cops under dubious cicumstance like I have, you would know that about 10,000 people in the U.S. are being shot by cops each year under dubious circumstances.

For the past 5 years I have stayed near home. It is just too dangerous to travel in the U.S. these days--thanks to the armies of invasive cops everywhere.

I have been watching this Fascism thing coming on in the U.S. for about 10 years now. Its seed came from Reagan and his crowd, but it really started to take off in 1994 when the GOP took over Congress. By now, since the 2000 elections, Fascism is running rampant in the U.S.

Here is that article. Its URL is in the box above.

tommy
--------

Blair Under Investigation
For Bribery Re: Iraq War?

Prime Minister Tony Blair is under investigation leading to possible charges for criminal bribery with George W. Bush(43) as a co-conspirator.

Cloak and Dagger has been contacted by reliable bank investigators who have uncovered evidence that British PM Blair was involved in criminal bribery. Blair is now under investigation for accepting large bribes from the Bush oil interests.
The evidence consists of bank transfers from George Bush financial interests to PM Blair's personal accounts via the United Arab Emirates where the investigations into criminal bribery against Blair began.
The bribery purpose is so that the United Kingdom's PM would be sure to go along with Bush's plan to forcibly seize the Iraqi oil fields while also unseating strongman Saddam Hussein. Part of the bribery plan was to use the Oil fields for collateral to support an out of control US deficit.
It is no surprise that the U.S. treasury is alarmed by the declining proceeds of tax receipts. The White House is pushing for massive tax cuts for wealthy Americans at the time of a growing deficit.
In recent months the Cloak and Dagger program has exclusively presented on air, details from the moderator and producer Sherman Skolnick, of a Chicago Public Access Cable TV program.
Cloak and Dagger has spoken directly with the Investigators who presented the evidence to senior French diplomatic officials today. Bank investigators have shown senior French diplomats documents that corroborate the following.

1-That the scheme to grab Iraqi oil fields was in the works over a year and a half ago when several billion dollars was transferred to bank accounts set up for the private benefit of Blair.

2- Another document shows that Blair and his wife privately profited for arranging for North Korea to have nuclear capability. Skolnick also has stated on his TV show including broadcasting documents showing Hilary Clinton, now U.S. Senator Democrat New York, likewise privately profited from the treasonous North Korean deal.

3- The officials said that this will put Blair to the wall and remove his furniture from 10 Downing Street.

HELLO MY NAME IS LILLY AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU GUYS CAN E-MAIL ME A PICTURE OF THE WARMPOOLS THAT PEOPLE CAN SINK THEIR FEET IN , IN FRONT OF THEIR HOMES IN ,(TURKEY)THE COUNTRY. THE ROCK THAT NATURALLY FORMS A NATURAL ROUND SHALLOW POOL WITH WARM WATER WAS BEAUTIFUL I NEVER SEEN SUCH A THING, PLEASE MY CLASS MATE HAD A SPEECH AND SHE DID HER SPEECH ON HER CULTURE AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH THESE PICTURES OF HER COUNTRY I THINK THEY ARE CALL PLATEAUS I AM NOT SURE BUT THE PHOTOS THAT SHE SHOWED ME WERE BREATH TAKING AND I AWAYS WANTED A PIC OF THAT SCENERY EVER SINCE .....THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH I HOPE YOU CAN HELP ME WITH THIS THANKS SO VERY VERY MUCH

Posted by: LILLY at January 24, 2004 03:50 AM

HELLO MY NAME IS LILLY AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU GUYS CAN E-MAIL ME A PICTURE OF THE WARMPOOLS THAT PEOPLE CAN SINK THEIR FEET IN , IN FRONT OF THEIR HOMES IN ,(TURKEY)THE COUNTRY. THE ROCK THAT NATURALLY FORMS A NATURAL ROUND SHALLOW POOL WITH WARM WATER WAS BEAUTIFUL I NEVER SEEN SUCH A THING, PLEASE MY CLASS MATE HAD A SPEECH AND SHE DID HER SPEECH ON HER CULTURE AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH THESE PICTURES OF HER COUNTRY I THINK THEY ARE CALL PLATEAUS I AM NOT SURE BUT THE PHOTOS THAT SHE SHOWED ME WERE BREATH TAKING AND I AWAYS WANTED A PIC OF THAT SCENERY EVER SINCE .....THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH I HOPE YOU CAN HELP ME WITH THIS THANKS SO VERY VERY MUCH